“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The couple, Carol and Fred—not married—related to us a most “far-out” series of events leading to their finding out where we lived. The odds against such a series of happenings must be very high. The heart of the chain of events resulted in their meeting Miss Dineen on the sidewalk in front of Rubin’s bookstore as they were putting money into a parking meter. Miss Dineen told them they needn’t do so on a holiday, and the conversation among the three of them took off from there—culminating in Miss Dineen remembering that she knew us when Miss Callahan was alive, etc.—all of this after Carol and Fred had asked Miss Dineen if she knew us.

(These notes hardly do justice to the string of events that led to Carol and Fred meeting Miss Dineen—from the couple’s leaving Watkins Glen, motoring to Elmira, deciding upon how to find us, asking a policeman finally for directions to a book-store, going to the wrong bookstore—Rubin’s—just as Miss Dineen came out of the religious bookstore almost next door, Miss Dineen first directing them to 458 West Water, then remembering that we’d moved, etc. This list is not complete, but could be fleshed out should we ever want to; we have the addresses of Carol and Fred on file.

(It wasn’t until after the Canadian couple had left us, actually, that the implications of what had happened began to sink in. I thought the odds alone staggering that it had happened at all. During their visit the woman, Carol, several times expressed the thought that she returned the second time, to see if we were home, because “it was meant to be,” or words to that effect. She also said that if we hadn’t been home, that was meant to be also. Carol had met an individual named Ron who had visited us here at 1730 two years or so ago—not long after we’d moved in, incidentally. Jane and I haven’t seen Miss Dineen except once soon after Miss Callahan’s death at least 10 years ago. Personally, I do not think I would know her if we met.

(The encounter with the Canadian couple was so recent that as we sat for the session it hadn’t occurred to Jane and me to hope that Seth would discuss the affair, or to even ask that he do so. I was impressed by the meeting on the street, but equally taken with the fact that Hal had known someone who’d known James. Strangely, in all of this the meeting of Rusty and the president of Prentice-Hall hadn’t registered as strongly with us, though we recognized that it could be an event originating in Framework 2. Oh yes—the president is involved with Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, which may have been his motivation for attending Rusty’s talk to begin with.)

To do this properly, however, you must not check at every moment in Framework 1. If our young woman of this evening had done that, she would have hopelessly complicated matters. She might have looked at a map and said “Someone in one of those houses must have had a personal contact with the Buttses, in case we do not meet them. I will try every third house, or I will go to the police department—or to the newspaper.” All quite practical ideas.

She did in fact go to a bookstore, but in so doing she killed two birds with one stone, so to speak, for she found your address in the phone book, but also just happened to run into Miss Dineen—and that was something that only a thorough canvassing of the town might produce.

I am trying to make conscious to you methods that you use beautifully unconsciously and well in other areas of your living. Our young woman selectively interpreted her experience with the interpretation of names, for example, as given this evening—but that selectivity led her exactly where she wanted to go, and in certain terms she actually did ignore any data that did not lead her in a desired direction. So, while it may seem impractical, you do the same thing when you selectively pay attention to Ruburt’s improvements and selectively ignore areas of difficulty. You build a new orientation, which then becomes the actual one.

In areas of conflict, you have to learn to do this consciously while in areas of success you have done it unconsciously all along. Many of Ruburt’s joints, particularly in the neck, feet, and knees, are loosening considerably. Their motion is all connected, of course. This causes the muscles to change, and in particular their tension is altered. When his weight is on his feet, when they are ready the joints and feet try new positions—that at the time they might not be able to maintain.

In its own way, the James connection happened in the same fashion, for your desires and beliefs go out in all directions in time. Your context outlive your deaths. The particular connections here are too complicated to try to explain, but they do involve James’s intense interest during his life in the future of his own work, and in the state of the psychic field of the future.

The living people, so involved in this network, will have their own other encounters, of course, but again through a psychological selectivity. You can be aware after death of those encounters also. There are implications I am not expressing adequately, and it may be impossible to do so.

In a manner of speaking, the gentleman’s (Hal) visit, while Ruburt is doing the James book, completes an intent on James’s part that he had in life. The event, again, in a way is even separate from Ruburt’s present connection with James, but followed as a result of James’s living curiosity regarding highly gifted mediums that might exist after his death.

I do want to mention that relaxation will definitely quicken all areas of Ruburt’s improvement, releasing the neck tendons and so forth, so that the eyes will stabilize in good vision. The hot towels will also benefit.